The room fell eerily quiet.
All voices had vanished.
Wen Shichun sensed something was wrong—
From the moment the breathing around him abruptly stopped.
Where were the others?
His gaze fixed on a certain direction.
In the darkness, a faint sound emerged from the previously empty corner.
As if something was being dragged across the carpet.
A soft, rustling noise.
The sound grew closer.
Every second, it echoed once through the silent space.
Each time, it advanced several meters.
Its speed was unnatural—alternately swift and motionless, as if leaping forward in erratic bursts, closing in on where Wen Shichun stood.
Amid the pitch black, he raised the desk lamp in his hand.
The sound paused for an instant.
Then, a blinding white light flashed.
His eyes stung from the glare. In the moment he shut them, he lunged toward the last known source of that strange noise, swinging the lamp with full force—
The air shuddered.
Wen Shichun’s strike met empty space.
Undeterred, he kept listening, adjusting, his attacks growing fiercer.
After several exchanges—
A hoarse laugh broke the darkness.
This time, it came from just behind him.
Wen Shichun froze.
It was the first time the *thing* had made a sound of its own.
Wen Shichun didn’t chase after the voice anymore.
His right hand, still gripping the desk lamp, dropped to his side.
His breathing had grown ragged during that earlier game of cat and mouse.
A few seconds of tense silence passed.
The thing standing behind him, seeing its prey stop struggling, finally closed in again.
This time, it got dangerously close.
So close that Wen Shichun could feel its breath against his ear—
Just as he spun around and slammed the heavy metal base of the lamp into its head, a light flickered to life in the pitch-black darkness.
His gaze snapped toward the source—Bo Ya was holding a glowing white crystal sphere in her hands.
Everything seemed to return to normal.
His teammates stood around him.
The thing from before had vanished.
But the satisfying impact of hard metal striking flesh still lingered in his grip.
Wen Shichun’s eyes swept over the high-level players in the room.
Each held a different glowing object.
Where had they even pulled those from?
Game items?
Noticing movement beside him, Chang Zhao spoke up, "Back with us?"
Earlier, just as he’d taken out an emergency tool, he’d seen Wen Shichun grab the desk lamp like a weapon.
Those striking eyes had burned with such ferocity that even Chang Zhao had frozen for a second.
After searching the study, Chang Zhao realized Wen Shichun hadn’t moved at all. At first, he thought maybe Xiao E was scared, so after scanning the room, he walked back to his side.
But then he saw Wen Shichun’s head bow slightly. Sensing something wrong, Chang Zhao opened his mouth to speak—only for Wen Shichun to suddenly move.
Now, seeing Wen Shichun’s calm expression—even less icy than before—Chang Zhao let out a quiet sigh of relief.
Maybe he’d just imagined it.
If the dungeon boss had gone after Xiao E, something would have happened by now.
A few beams of light were still scanning the study.
Wen Shichun’s gaze followed one of the moving spots of light.
It seemed like he had just been pulled into another space.
The commotion inside had been intense.
But no one outside had noticed.
It appeared he hadn’t moved at all from the beginning.
His teammates’ calm reactions made Wen Shichun suspect that only he had been targeted by that thing.
After a while longer, nothing happened. Once everyone confirmed there were no abnormalities—
"Is everyone alright?" Xun Yi asked, scanning the group with a hint of disbelief. While it was good that nothing was wrong, the situation felt off. They had clearly triggered a crisis, so why had nothing happened?
The others shared the same thought.
The sudden power outage left them puzzled.
Bo Ya, who had been standing farther away, started moving toward the study door. Noticing her movement, Wen Shichun quickly followed. "Wait."
Without lifting the lamp, he pointed toward the open door. "The door’s position changed. Something was here."
The study had double doors. When they first entered, they had pushed them open inward and hadn’t touched them since. But now, the right door was slightly closed—as if someone had brushed against it while leaving.
The others gathered around.
"Was the killer in the study earlier?" He Yi frowned.
But then he dismissed the idea.
They’d been in this study for a while now.
If there had been anything unusual, they would have noticed.
The others stayed silent.
Their earlier search really hadn’t turned up anything strange.
Wen Shichun wasn’t sure what he had encountered earlier, but it seemed that thing really had entered the room.
He left behind a clue—now his teammates should notice it too.
His gaze turned toward the dimly lit hallway.
"Shall we go out together?" Shen Jing, standing among the group, asked in a hushed voice.
Deep down, she was a little worried.
Usually, sudden changes in a dungeon would strengthen the boss's abilities or grant them new powers, making the players' situation even more dangerous.
"Let's go," Xun Yi said.
As soon as he spoke, Chang Zhao took two quick steps back to the desk, picked up the landline phone, unplugged the cord, coiled it up, and hung it over his arm.
Wen Shichun was closest to the door and the first to step into the hallway. Without a light source in hand, Chang Zhao walked up to him and handed over his own glowing device before pulling out another green fluorescent stick. Casually, he added, "Walk behind me."
"Mm," Wen Shichun responded.
His calm eyes reflected the faint green glow ahead.
Unreadable.
As the group left the eerie third-floor hallway, they noticed light seeping up from the second floor.
So only the third floor's lights had gone out.
On their way down to the first floor, Chang Zhao still carried the phone, but the coiled cord had somehow ended up in He Yi's hands.
As He Yi brought up the rear, descending the stairs, he couldn’t figure out how things had turned out this way—how had the phone cord landed with him?
He really didn’t want to hold onto such a dangerous dungeon item.
Had they all just unanimously passed it to him with that flimsy excuse about "spreading the risk"?
Once back on the first floor, Wen Shichun didn’t head straight to the kitchen. Seeing that he wanted to check the main hall, Yue Cheng volunteered to go cook for his "brother" first. Chang Zhao, noticing that the E-rank player truly wasn’t afraid, followed Yue Cheng into the kitchen—just in case this suspicious District 4 guy tampered with the food.
He Yi knew what was in the main hall and figured it was better to wait in the kitchen, keeping an eye on things while also puzzling over the third-floor blackout.
Bo Ya seemed unwell, so Shen Jing sent her to rest in the kitchen while she and Xun Yi went to inspect the remaining side room on the first floor.
Only when Wen Shichun was left alone in the main hall did those impassive eyes finally flicker with movement.
His lips pressed into a thin line as he paced the empty hall.
Yes, he wasn’t afraid.
That thing had just had its head smashed in by him—it probably wouldn’t show up again for a while.
Probably.
Wen Shichun walked a slow circle around the empty hall. The furniture on this floor was all covered with white sheets. From the outlines, two sofas sat in the center of the room. Along the walls, humanoid sculptures stood every few meters, each two and a half meters tall. The tall windows flanking the entrance, several meters high, were now obscured by pale gray curtains, adding another layer of gloom to the already frigid space.
Even though the distance from floor to ceiling was equivalent to three stories of a normal house, the layout still felt oppressive.
The sheet-draped furniture seemed like it might come alive at any moment.
Hiding beneath the covers, breathing in the dead silence of the night.
The dining room was to the left of the hall, and faint voices could still be heard from that direction. Wen Shichun moved toward the opposite corner. Just as he stopped in front of one of the sculptures, the curtain beside him suddenly billowed—cold wind rushing through the open window—and lashed at the figure standing by the glass.
From the moment the window made a faint sound to the second he was engulfed by the curtain, the man in the corner reacted swiftly, grabbing the fabric and yanking it aside, his icy gaze fixed ahead.
Then, in two strides, he reached the open window. The light from the hall spilled outside, illuminating about two meters of space, but there was still no one in sight.
Chang Zhao, who had rushed over from the dining room at the noise, reached Wen Shichun and asked, "What happened?!"
"Why’d you open the window? What’s going on?"
"Damn, it’s freezing." Chang Zhao shivered as he stepped closer to the window, glancing at the pitch-black darkness outside.
"It opened by itself," Wen Shichun replied.
His eyes flicked to the window latch—the kind that usually couldn’t be opened from the outside.
Xun Yi and Shen Jing emerged from the side hall at the commotion.
"Was it not closed properly earlier?" Chang Zhao muttered, pushing the window shut again.
Wen Shichun pressed his lips together.
The sudden gust of wind had blown the white sheet off the sculpture beside him, leaving it sprawled across the polished floor.
Only now did Chang Zhao notice the yellowish plaster statue, taller than himself, and blurted out, "What the hell?"
"Who puts stuff like this in their house?" He glanced around at the others—there were probably more. "And so many of them. Isn’t it creepy seeing these at night?"
Just imagine if there were a thunderstorm, all the curtains in this hall pulled open, and then a blackout like the one on the third floor—
"With so many sculptures, if someone were hiding among them, you might not even notice at a glance."
How dangerous.
"This mansion is eerie, perched on top of a mountain. Anyone who lives in a place like this must have a few screws loose."
Chang Zhao muttered a few words to himself.
The beauty beside him wasn’t much for conversation, and he was used to that. But to his surprise, by the end, he actually got a response.
Listening to Chang Zhao’s rambling, Wen Shichun nodded. "You’re right."
"See?!" Delighted that the beauty had acknowledged him, Chang Zhao instantly grew more enthusiastic. "Let’s not just stand here—let’s go grab something to eat."
Completely forgetting the original topic.
"Found anything?" In the end, it was Xun Yi, who had already walked up to them, who asked Wen Shichun directly.
There was no need to hide this kind of clue. Wen Shichun answered plainly, "The shape of the curtains near the sculpture looked off."
That was why he had come to this corner earlier.
He just hadn’t expected the window to suddenly swing open, catching him off guard.
Chang Zhao hadn’t known about this and was about to fuss over him when Xiao E continued, "It looked like a human figure."
"But when I pulled the curtains aside, there was nothing there."
"There wasn’t enough time for someone to escape through the window."
"And there were no traces outside."
As Wen Shichun spoke, his eyes grew cold.
His tone was steady, making it easy for others to unconsciously trust his judgment.
The system, which had been silent all this time, once again sensed its host’s well-trained composure: "..."
Just moments ago, his fear levels had nearly spiked past the limit—how did he still dare to go over and investigate?
And his reaction and speed afterward were top-notch.
This rare moment of contemplation made the system pause.
Could it be related to that aggression?
It was the first time it had seen someone become abnormally aggressive in a state of fear.
Not only did it not impair their thinking or judgment, but their movements were also twice as agile as usual.
What was this—a stress response?
It couldn’t tell whether this trait of the host was a bad thing or a good thing for him.
Meanwhile, Shen Jing’s voice spoke up.
"You’re saying… it might still be in this hall right now?"
